Anne Devine: Thursday nights are now for visitor watching

What am I going to do with this? Shur we have a door bell. But it’s my birthday and when you get beyond a certain age, your children will buy you things they think you should have, rather than what you’d actually like.

Deirdre, my eldest is insistent. She tells me about all the latchikos that’d be going around looking into houses while you wouldn’t be there. I hadn’t thought of them before but now I’m worried. Don’t we get fierce worried when we find out what we’re supposed to be worried about. I’d rather not know. She explains to me that the doorbell has a little camera on it and you can connect it up to your phone and see who’s at the door. I tell her I can look out the window but that isn’t enough, apparently. I don’t know how many people she thinks are going to be calling to the door.

Raising money

That was then and this is now. Because I realised just what I’ve been missing all my life – hearing what people are muttering outside my door before I answer, or when I’m not there.

It started with Nuala Costigan. I probably guessed what she thought of me but still – nice to have it confirmed. She was raising money for the GAA Lotto and she calls along with Carmel Cullen. “They haven’t done much to this house in years have they Carmel?” she says in the time it takes me to get from the back garden out to the front. I heard a latchiko tell another one there wouldn’t be much worth robbing here. I sent that to the guards.

I heard the postman giving out yards about the stiffness of our letterbox. “Would you think they’d put a bit of oil in that,” he says, “and they’ve nothing to do inside there.” Hah?

Geraldine my sister is with Freya.

“And would you say she’s slowing down Freya?” she’s asking her. About me! Slowing down? Well I’m faster off the mark than her anyway. Me like Maxwell Smart learning all about the lives of others.

I feel like the postmistress in the old days. Steaming open the letters. Except now I can just boil the kettle and watch away to my hearts content. No envelopes required. Technology is a mighty thing.

Even Denis. Humming pop songs. I’m over in Lidl and I get the notification and there he is deedley-idling away, trying to fish the key out of his overalls.

But then I show him the other videos and now on Thursday nights, we’re having a few cans watching all the visitors instead of the Netflix. The Charismatic Christians of Day of the Light come around

“Dooddie doodie doooo with me tonight …De doodi de doodi I’m levitating”

“What song is that Denis?” “What song is what Ann?” The look on his face when I play the video back to him. “Where did you hear Dua Lipa Denis?” (Freya has whatsapped me the name along with a puzzled emoji). “Dual Who?” he says.

He’s a bit shocked. “Jays that’s an awful yoke altogether Ann, you’re like Jimmy Steward in Rear Window. Only he was in his house in a wheelchair and you were over in Lidl next to the chainsaws. Did you get the extra battery charger by the way?”

word got around

But then I show him the other videos and now on Thursday nights, we’re having a few cans watching all the visitors instead of the Netflix. The Charismatic Christians of Day of the Light come around.

“She’s inside alright,” one of them says, accompanied by a profanity. “Not very Christian,” says Denis.

But as quickly at it began, the fun is over. The Burglar Alarm people NetFear are around doing a deal on doorbells with cameras. A load of other people get them. And now the whole of Kilsudgeon knows there might be cameras on the doorbells. Everyone has gone quiet. And sure enough, no one says a word at my door now.

Technology has ruined everything.

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